Re: Jātaka, and low eyestrain e-ink readers

Dear Stefan,
I see your email shows a date of 12/19, today your post made it out
to the list (12/25). I think some of your questions may already be
answered during that time, but here are some more thoughts to consider.

On my kindle touch and the model just before the touch came out
(wireless, no 3g, + special spammy offers from amazon and partners), I
was able to view pali diacritics on unicode just fine, including the
tipitaka press epubs which were converted into .mobi with the free
program calibre.

As far as pali unicode surviving from PDF to mobi conversion from
calibre or amazon's free conversion service, I've had mixed results.
Calibre seems to be able to pull out scan of pictures from pdf files. I
always assumed that the pDF->mobi conversions that worked were because
the PDF's were authored with a standard unicode font, and the ones that
didn't work were a special pali font. To test out my theory, I used open
office (a free equivalent of microsoft word), and typed this microsoft
word document, using default Times New roman:
Pāḷi unicode test ā ī ū ṭṭṭ

If i export it to html, it reads fine as a webpage.
I exported it to a PDF file.
Then I used calibre to convert it from PDF to .mobi.
I put that mobi on my kindle touch.

It works fine.
It took me 5 minutes to do that.

I highly encourage Piya with his Sutta Discovery series and others to
use standard unicode pali, so your electronic publications can be
effortlessly ported to various devices.

Metta,
Frank

On 12/19/2011 4:07 AM, stefan_karpik wrote:
>
>
> Dear Bryan, Frank and others interested in e-readers,
>
> These posts made me think about upgrading my Kindle 3 to a Kindle
> Touch, but I think I would still have the same problems after an
> upgrade:
>
> 1. Neither reads ePub documents. This means the offerings of
> Theravada Tripitaka Press can't be read on Kindle.
>
> 2. PDFs often cannot be enlarged sufficiently to read them. 3. PDFs
> can be converted into Kindle format by Amazon quite efficiently and
> for free, but diacritics, even in a Unicode font like Times Roman
> Extended, come out as gobbledegook and tables are jumbled up. 4. PDFs
> of scans cannot be converted to Kindle format
>
> 5. New fonts to handle diacritics cannot be introduced.
>
> Is this true for the Kindle Touch?
>
> Does anyone have a very positive experience of reading Pali on e-ink
> readers?
>
> I completely agree that e-ink is much easier on the eyes than a
> computer/ tablet/ smartphone screen.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Stefan Karpik
>
> --- In Pali@yahoogroups.com <mailto:Pali%40yahoogroups.com>, Bryan
> Levman <bryan.levman@...> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Frank,
> >
> > Thanks for your description of the Kindle Touch; it sounds well
> > worth
> the price!
> >
> > Metta, Bryan
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________ From: frank fcckuan@... To:
> > Pali@yahoogroups.com <mailto:Pali%40yahoogroups.com> Sent:
> > Thursday, December 15, 2011 11:12:06 AM Subject: Re: [Pali] Re:
> > Jātaka, and low eyestrain e-ink readers
> >
> >
> > Â Dear Bryan and all, I looked at those links, there are digital
> > versions there you can download, including Epub and mobi! Very
> > cool. That means you can read
> it
> > with low eyestrain on a kindle, nook, etc. You can also get free
> > ebook readers for your pc that will read those two formats. I got a
> > "kindle touch" this month for 99$. Works very well. Visudhimagga
> > (.mobi version) works GREAT on there. The swipe up and swipe down
> > on the touch screen advances up and down through chapters, and the
> > hyperlinks in the table of contents work. Also, I didn't register
> > my kindle touch with amazon, and I leave the wireless
> features
> > turned off, so I don't get bombarded with annoying advertisements.
> > I highly recommend everyone take a serious look at the e-readers
> > (using e-ink) out there now that they're below 100$, especially
> > kindle touch and nook touch. The e-ink works just like a printed
> > book. You
> can
> > read it in full sunlight, low eye-strain, unlike computer screens
> > that have flourescent back lights, which makes your vision go fuzzy
> > and get slight headaches after a few hours of staring at it. I'm
> > pretty sure there's people on this list who do a lot of reading,
> > and if hours of
> it
> > are spent reading on a computer screen, you're going to be much
> happier
> > if you can read it on an ebook reader using e-ink instead. Note
> > that
> the
> > color ebook readers such as the "kindle fire" are not e-ink
> > readers, they are flourescent or LED backlight just like other
> > tablet computers or pc screens, and thus would not have the
> > advantage of low eyestrain e-ink such as the monochrome grayscale
> > "kindle touch", "nook touch", etc. I also don't recommend the entry
> > level "kindle" for 79$ which
> does
> > NOT have a touch screen. The button and 4 way cursor is incredibly
> > tedious to use. Newer ebooks published, and especially dhamma
> > material in ebook format will take full advantage of hyperlinks and
> > you want to be able to just touch the hyperlink on screen and go
> > there, not
> navigate
> > with a four way button cursor. The 20$ savings between "kindle
> > touch" and entry level kindle is not worth it.
> >
> > -Frank
> >
> > On 12/15/2011 3:40 AM, Bryan Levman wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear Piya,
> >>
> >> You mean the English version by Burlingame, I assume? (I believe
> >> the Pali is all on the Digital Pali Reader).
> >>
> >> I use this link for volume 2:
> >>
> >>
> http://books2.scholarsportal.info/viewdoc.html?id=/ebooks/oca1/15/buddhi\
>
>
stlegends02burluoft
<http://books2.scholarsportal.info/viewdoc.html?id=/ebooks/oca1/15/buddhistlegends02burluoft>
> >>
> >> at the University of Toronto; I don't believe you can download
> >> it,
> but
> >> you can read it on line
> >>
> >> The link for volume 3 is:
> >>
> >>
> http://books1.scholarsportal.info/viewdoc.html?id=/ebooks/oca1/15/buddhi\
>
>
stlegends03burluoft
<http://books1.scholarsportal.info/viewdoc.html?id=/ebooks/oca1/15/buddhistlegends03burluoft>
> >>
> >> Hopefully that works for you. If anyone has a PDF version of
> >> Burlingame, please let the group know,
> >>
> >> Metta,
> >>
> >> Bryan
> >>
> >> ________________________________ From: Piya Tan dharmafarer@...
> >> <mailto:dharmafarer%40gmail.com>> To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
> >> <mailto:Pali%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:Pali%40yahoogroups.com>
> >> Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 11:11:00 PM Subject: Re:
> >> [Pali] Re: Jātaka
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Dharma Friends,
> >>
> >> I have Dhammapadatthakatha (Dh Commentary in Pali) vol 1. Does
> anyone have
> >> the rest or know where i can download them?
> >>
> >> With metta,
> >>
> >> Piya
> >>
> >> On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 7:13 PM, Bryan Levman bryan.levman@...
> >> <mailto:bryan.levman%40yahoo.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >>> **
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Dear Friends,
> >>>
> >>> Does anyone know if the seven Fausboll Jātaka volumes are
> available on
> >>> line with the prose and commentary? Most of the canons that I
> >>> have consulted seems to only have the Jātaka verses. Thanks
> >>> for
> your help,
> >>>
> >>> Metta, Bryan
> >>>
> >>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >> -- *hp (65) 8211 0879*
> >>
> >> *The Minding Centre* 170 Upper Bukit Timah Road #11-04 Bukit
> >> Timah Shopping Centre Singapore 588179
> >>
> >> Meditation courses & therapy: http://themindingcentre.org Sutta
> >> translation: http://dharmafarer.org
> >>
> >> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >>
> >> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >>
> >>
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>

e


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]